Electronic dance music fans flocked to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion for Identity Festival, which showcased acts from a variety of different genres of electronic music and featured a lineup of international artists such as Eric Prydz, Wolfgang Gartner and Nero.
Photo by Drew Nelson
Electronic dance music fans flocked to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion [https: /www.woodlandscenter.org/] for the Houston-area stop of Identity Festival [https://idfestival.com/] last weekend, which showcased acts from a variety of different genres of electronic music and featured a lineup of international artists such as Eric Prydz, Wolfgang Gartner and Nero. Scorching heat, roaring bass and dazzling stage light shows kept festival-goers dancing and singing along from the early afternoon til well into the night. While the Identity Festival offered fans a chance to see some of their favorite acts perform live, it also provided them the opportunity to show off some their creative garb — many of the outfits seen at this and other electronic music [https://www.omaha.com/article/20120813/GO/708139972] festivals wouldn't be considered appropriate, or even sane, in any other context. With the many thousands of fans eagerly shuffling through the gates of the Identity Music Festival and other electronic music events like it, it's difficult to deny how this relatively young genre of music has exploded in popularity over the last several years in the United States. The crowd at the iHome Main Stage is engulfed in smoke.
There have been a number of films in the past decade or so that have confronted police brutality and/or corruption, detailing both fictional and real-life events. The seriousness of the topic has mostly kept stories confined strictly to the drama category, but the new film Rebel Ridgedares to take things into the action/thriller genre while still remaining thoughtful about the larger subject at hand.
As the film begins, Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) is traveling by bicycle down a country road when he is followed and then crashed into by a police cruiser. Over his objections, the two officers conduct a search of his backpack, where they find a large amount of cash that Terry was going to use to bail his cousin out of jail. Without due cause, the cops confiscate the money and leave Terry to fend for himself.
While clearly upset about his mistreatment and the injustice heaped upon him, Terry continues to try work within the system to get his cousin released, only to be stymied at every turn. Left with no other option, Terry decides to confront the small-town police department, led by Chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson). His background in the Marines, especially a certain set of skills he learned there, make him a formidable threat, even in the face of a group of highly-armed men.
Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room), the film is striking in how calm Terry remains, even when he decides to resort to violent means. In his multiple interactions with the police in the first half of the film, he remains in control of his emotions at all times, refusing to give the cops any extra reason to take their anger out on him. This behavior rings true to life, a subtle but strong commentary on the expectations put on Black people in such situations.
With a low-but-pulsating score and a carefully-crafted building of tension, Saulnier gives the audience permission to want to see Terry enact his revenge on the cops. And yet, the film is far from exploitative. At the same time as he’s growing angrier by the minute with the police, he’s working with Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), a court employee, to free his cousin legally. The combination of the two storylines works well, especially when the story takes a turn in the final act.
Saulnier is careful to keep the action in the film relatively realistic. While there are some moments when Terry shows extraordinary abilities, they make sense given the character’s training and never turn him into an unstoppable superhero. Even more pointed is how Terry eschews the use of guns. There are multiple times when picking up a gun is an option, and yet he picks something else every time, a moral code not often seen in films such as these.
Pierre proves to be the perfect actor for this particular role. While he’s big enough to be intimidating and has eyes that seem to pierce the soul, it’s the level-headed demeanor that he brings to the role that makes it a great performance. Johnson has just the right amount of charisma and malevolence for his part, and Robb shows a maturity that may signal the start of the next phase of her career.
Rebel Ridge plays with ideas formed from real life and similar movies to become a stirring film that hits almost all the right notes. It doesn’t necessarily have any answers for the systemic problems it includes in its story, but the righteous anger it provokes make it highly memorable.